The present invention relates to apparatus for sorting textile bobbins, specifically relating to the sorting of textile bobbins according to the presence or absence of residual yarn wrappings thereon and according to the amount of residual yarn wrapped thereabout.
As is well known in the yarn handling field of the textile industry, numerous textile operations involve the use of yarn or other filamentary material taken from textile yarn packages in which yarn is wrapped about bobbins, tubes, or the like. For the purposes of describing the present invention and to facilitate the understanding of the present invention, such bobbins, tubes, or the like are referred to herein generically as "bobbins" and such term should be understood to include all such yarn carrying devices. In the continuation of such textile operations, such bobbins are generally replaced before being fully spent. Therefore, before such replaced bobbins can be reused, the residual yarn wrapped thereabout must be removed.
Basically, such spent bobbins comprise bobbins of three general types: empty bobbins having no residual yarn remaining thereon, bobbins having a relatively small amount of yarn remaining thereon which yarn, due to the small amount thereof, is not generally usable, and bobbins having a sufficiently large amount of residual yarn wrapped thereabout to warrant the reclamation of the yarn for use. Certain textile yarn handling operations, e.g. winding operations, will generate spent bobbins falling within all three of the above categories, while other such operations will normally generate bobbins within only the first two categories, e.g. a textile machine for stripping residual yarn from bobbins, which will fail to strip an average of one to four bobbins in fifty. Of these three types of spent bobbins, the empty bobbins are, of course, immediately reusable. However, stripping of the residual yarn from the bobbins having a small amount of residual yarn thereon is necessary before such bobbins may be reused, and unwinding of the yarn from the bobbins having a larger amount of yarn thereon is generally necessary to reclaim the yarn thereon for use.
The need to sort such spent bobbins according to these three categories is thus apparent. Conventional apparatus are available for separating empty bobbins and bobbins having a small amount of residual yarn thereon from bobbins having a large amount of residual yarn remaining thereon, such apparatus utilizing a plate or the like having an opening formed therein of a particular configuration and size so as to permit the passage therethrough of any bobbins having less than a predetermined amount of residual yarn wrapped thereabout while preventing the passage therethrough of bobbins having greater than such predetermined amount of yarn wrapped thereabout, and utilizing means such as a conveyor assembly for transporting and presenting bobbins to the plate opening. However no apparatus is known to exist for automatically sorting clean bobbins from bobbins having residual yarn wrapped thereabout, such process being presently and traditionally performed by hand.
In contrast with the above, the present invention provides a novel apparatus for sorting textile bobbins mechanically and automatically either into two groups comprised respectively of empty bobbins and bobbins having residual yarn thereon, or into three groups comprised respectively of empty bobbins, bobbins having less than a predetermined amount of residual yarn thereon and bobbins having greater than such predetermined amount of residual yarn thereon.